Pioneers in Professionalism

It is a cold, blustery day in late November, and teachers Rick
Wormeli and Diane Hughart are perched on the tattered brown plaid couch
that takes up one end of the paneled trailer that is Rick's classroom.
Their laps are full of papers, folders, and cardboard boxes. They are
feeling a bit overwhelmed.

The two English teachers, colleagues at Herndon Middle School,
located in a Virginia suburb of the nation's capital, have volunteered
to take part in a project that is widely viewed as one of the most
significant developments in the teaching profession in decades.

But just what that commitment means is only now becoming clear to
them. On the strength of a little bit of information and a lot of
curiosity, they and a handful of other teachers from around the nation
have signed on to field-test new assessments developed by the National
Board for Professional Teaching Standards. The board has spent the past
seven years creating a system of voluntary national certification to
recognize outstanding teachers.

The assessments, which ultimately will determine who gets certified
and who does not, are nothing like the paper-and-pencil tests so
familiar to teachers. Instead, Rick, Diane, and the other teachers
participating in the pilot-test will spend the next couple of months
putting together portfolios of their best work in the classroom. These
portfolios will include videotapes of exemplary lessons, samples of
students' work, testimonies from colleagues, and teachers' own written
comments on their professional successes and failures.

Assembling the portfolios, Rick and Diane are just beginning to
realize, is going to involve a massive amount of work. And it must be
done in a short time--the two months between mid-November and
mid-January. But even that won't complete the process. In early March,
Rick and Diane--along with other participating teachers throughout the
Washington metropolitan area--will sit for two days of assessments
designed to simulate classroom and teaching situations. They won't find
out whether they've made the grade until next fall.

But on this chilly day just after Thanksgiving, the eventual outcome
of the long process is not something Rick and Diane are worried about.
They're still reading through what they are being asked to do, making
sense of unfamiliar terminology, and creating filing systems to
organize their work. Just knowing which tasks to tackle first requires
much thought. Looking down at all the papers and his neatly labeled
accordion file, Rick says, "Right now, we're feeling like we've sold
our souls.'' Diane nods in agreement.

Rick, Diane, and four other teachers from the Fairfax County, Va.,
schools are getting started on their portfolios later than most of the
national-board candidates because the county was late in joining the
field-test. Diane, half-jokingly, says she and Rick decided to take the
plunge, despite the late timing, because they are both "overachievers''
who like to test themselves against high standards. That's exactly what
the assessments are all about: Teachers' work will be judged against
standards--set by accomplished teachers--that reflect the best current
wisdom about teaching and learning.

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, in fact, was
founded on the belief that teachers themselves should define what it
means to be a professional. It was established in 1987, following
recommendations made in a landmark report issued by a task force
convened by the influential Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Task-force members believed that, in order for teaching to become a
true profession, with the increased pay and responsibilities associated
with professionalism, more rigorous standards for teaching had to be
established.

The board, which has 63 members, the majority of whom are teachers,
hopes that its certification system will strengthen teaching and
improve student learning by creating standards that all teachers can
strive to meet. It views national certification not as an end in itself
but as an opportunity for professional growth.

While the national board, as a private body, has no direct control
over how school districts and states reward nationally certified
teachers, it hopes that they will receive higher pay, new career
opportunities that don't require them to leave the classroom, and
increased flexibility in moving between states without having to take
additional course work. A number of states and school districts are now
beginning to discuss creating incentives and rewards for
board-certified teachers.

The board plans to officially launch the certification system next
year with the two assessments that Rick and Diane are helping test. One
is for English-language-arts teachers, the other is for generalists;
both are for teachers of early adolescents. More than a dozen
committees are currently working to set standards in other subject
areas and grade levels; eventually, the national board plans to offer
certification in more than 30 teaching specialties.

The field-test, board officials say, is designed to identify and
smooth out the kinks involved in administering a nationwide assessment
system. But if Rick and Diane do well, they will be among the first
teachers in the United States to receive national certification.

Diane, an 8th-grade teacher who made a midcareer switch to teaching
four years ago at age 36, signed up for the project after reading in a
newsletter for Fairfax County teachers that the board was looking for
volunteers. She'd been interested in national certification since first
learning of the concept several years ago. "I'm more curious than
anything,'' she says, "and I like the idea of trying something new and
being involved.'' She also was attracted because the field-test is
free. (Next year, candidates for certification will pay $975 to undergo
the assessments. The board hopes that, eventually, states or districts
will subsidize some or all of the fee.)

Rick, who is 33 and began teaching 7th grade this year after a
decade in elementary school, was encouraged by the chairman of his
school's English department to take part in the field-test. He hopes
that national certification will lead to a pay raise--although he knows
there are no guarantees--and enable him to teach in any district in the
nation with full pension credit. The prospect of spending some time in
"quiet introspection'' about his work also appeals to him.

Neither of the teachers volunteered for lack of better things to do.
Diane, a single mother of two boys, ages 11 and 13, recently sold her
house and is planning to move during the Christmas holidays. Because of
renovations at school, she will have to move to a new classroom at
about the same time. Rick is also anticipating life-altering events.
His wife is expecting the couple's second child in the spring, and
their house is on the market.

Diane will be field-testing the assessment for English-language-arts
teachers, Rick the one for generalists. For this, he will draw heavily
on his years teaching at the elementary level. The national-board
process encourages candidates to collaborate. The process, after all,
is designed to be a professional-development exercise as well as a
measure of expertise. Although they are pursuing different
certifications, Diane and Rick have decided to work together on their
respective portfolios.

As they are about to find out, they'll need all the help and support
they can get.

In compiling their portfolios, teachers are expected to spend at
least three weeks documenting their work with one class. That means
that one of the first decisions Rick and Diane must make is which of
their classes to focus on. Rick turns to Chuck Cascio, a Fairfax County
teacher who works part time in the national board's Washington office,
for advice.

The Fairfax teachers volunteering for the field-test will also
receive some assistance from faculty members at George Washington
University's school of education in downtown Washington. The teachers
aren't the only ones who stand to gain from these regular meetings. The
academics hope to learn how they can make their teacher preparation
programs more compatible with national certification and how they can
best support teachers going through the process.

With Cascio's help, Rick decides to work with a class that includes
a large number of students with learning disabilities. Although he
knows that it will be tough to document growth over a short time period
with such students, he's aware that the assessment favors teachers who
meet the needs of diverse kinds of learners. Diane, searching for a
diverse group of outgoing students, picks her sixth-period 8th
graders.

Almost immediately, Rick and Diane begin videotaping their classroom
lessons, letting their students take turns with the cameras. They also
start to write about their teaching. Through their collaboration, they
quickly notice that the board expects different things from each of
them. In general, Rick's assigned portfolio exercises are more
open-ended than Diane's. For example, Rick, the generalist, must
complete a running written commentary on his work, while Diane, the
language-arts specialist, is asked to fill in "activity charts'' that
describe her teaching. The teachers theorize that the difference stems
from the subjects being assessed: The role of the English-language-arts
teacher is much more defined than that of the generalist, who must
teach all subjects.

Each night about 10, after bathing his toddler son and grading
papers, Rick sits down at his home computer to write a two- to
three-page commentary on the day's activities. It usually takes him
about two hours to describe what he had planned to do and why and to
reflect on whether it worked or not and why. The assignment seems to
mesh perfectly with Rick's enthusiastic, effusive personality. He looks
at every situation from a dozen angles and eagerly shares his material
with the other participating teachers. He clearly wants to do well and
quickly becomes known among his colleagues for overpreparing each
exercise in the portfolio. "Am I doing what the assessors are looking
for?'' he wonders aloud at a meeting. "I would hate to go all the way
through this and not have what I was supposed to have.''

Diane, on the other hand, needs only about 20 minutes a day to
document her teaching. The charts she is using break the class period
into segments and ask her to describe what she and her students are
doing and why. Later, she'll write an eight-page commentary from notes.
She's somewhat disappointed by the confines of the charts. They seem
dull compared with the nightly writing that Rick finds so stimulating.
She is currently enrolled in a graduate course on teachers as
researchers and knows the value of reflection.

"The commentary provides a place for me to tell my story,'' Rick
tells Diane one day in his classroom. "I look forward to this.''

At this point, Diane doesn't share his enthusiasm. "This is really
very bland to me,'' she complains. "It's humdrum. There's nothing in
here about how I make my decisions. To me, reflection is what makes
individual teachers different.''

At first, videotaping is a novelty that adds an air of excitement to
the teachers' classes. Students love taking turns operating the video
cameras and being responsible for something they know is important. But
the fun soon wears off. Diane begins to feel stressed, knowing that she
needs to capture a near-perfect lesson on tape. Her students, she
notices, are not adjusting well to the camera; their discussions are
inhibited or silly. And the portfolio-preparation process, sandwiched
between Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays, could not have come at
a worse time. Students are restless, and their schedules are full.
"These days,'' Diane says in mid-December, "I have a sense of urgency
with the camera. There are only so many days until the winter break,
when I'd like to have it finished.'' It doesn't help that the taping of
one particularly good lesson is interrupted by a fire drill.

Rick, who teaches in a narrow portable classroom, is having problems
of his own. The dimensions of the room make videotaping difficult;
there's no room for a tripod, so the camera is wedged onto a shelf. He
decides to let students take turns taping sessions with the camera on
their shoulders. This seems to work better.

As the teachers proceed with videotaping, writing, and gathering
samples of students' work, they periodically take time to read the
teaching standards that underlie the national board's assessments.
Diane, especially, feels that the standards are in sync with Fairfax
County's curricula. And the teachers read and reread the directions
that describe what they're supposed to do with the enormous amounts of
material they are collecting. At times, the requirements seem
reasonable and doable. But other times, the directions seem too
specific and demanding. Diane wonders, "If you fail to do one little
thing they were specific about, will you fail to be certified?''

Rick decides to videotape and write commentaries for 4-1/2 weeks,
even though the board only requires candidates to do it for three.
During this time, he's preparing his students, in cooperation with
their history teacher, for an independent-research project. He teaches
them how to pick a topic, narrow it down, conduct interviews, and use a
narrative writing style. He also is teaching parts of speech and works
in time for free reading and journal writing. One day, during a grammar
lesson, he dresses up as "Adverb Man'' and zips around modifying
things. As he explains concepts and answers questions, he changes his
voice. One day, he's a pirate; the next, a Frenchman.

Meanwhile, Diane's 8th graders are beginning a drama unit, reading a
play based on The Diary of Anne Frank. They keep their own diaries,
read the play aloud, discuss in groups the play's characters, and watch
a documentary film called "The Life of Anne Frank.'' They also write
about their own families' traditions, since, in the play, the Franks
celebrate Hanukkah. "I had to think of something that would show
integration of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing,''
says Diane, who manages her classes with an easygoing, friendly style,
encouraging but not dominating discussions.

Because Diane uses portfolios to help evaluate her students'
writing, she feels sure she won't have much trouble analyzing the work
of three students, a portfolio requirement. But all the hours she has
spent documenting her teaching have kept her from returning students'
papers in a timely fashion. She realizes she may have to devote a
little less time to the assessment project. "I am past the stage of
trying for perfection,'' she confides to the other Fairfax teachers at
a support meeting. "I am just trying to get it done.''

A few days before Christmas vacation, the two teachers meet in
Rick's crowded trailer for a quick catch-up session during their
preparation period. Diane is feeling confident about completing the
planning and teaching exercise. She has begun collecting students'
writing to analyze.

Rick has been looking back at his career, trying to identify, as the
assessment requires, two "transformative'' experiences to write about.
Today, though, he's bothered by something that happened recently and
wants to know if he should mention it in some way in his portfolio.
During a recent class, he used a classroom exercise--promoted by the
Folger Shakespeare Library--that urges students to compile a list of
Shakespearean adjectives and then use them in some way to insult their
teacher. It was a big hit with students, but it rubbed the mother of
twin girls in his classes the wrong way. In fact, the parent was so
bothered by the exercise that she requested a transfer for both of her
daughters.

Diane isn't sure that the episode is worth including. "You are
trying to show a good side of you,'' she says. "And because it's
unusual, I'm not sure it's a true picture of your teaching.''

The holidays pass in a rush. Diane and her children move during a
snowstorm, which costs her four precious days of working time. And then
she has to move out of her old classroom and into a new one, causing
chaos at school as well as at home.

At the Wormeli household, there's not even time to put up a
Christmas tree. Instead, the Wormelis tack up lights around their
living-room window and count the days until the portfolio must be
mailed.
"This vacation has been nonexistent,'' Kelly, Rick's wife, sighs.
"After dinner every night, he disappears for the next five hours.''

As the holiday break draws to a close, Rick is feeling pressure.
Among other things, he's bothered because he has let his routine
grading slide. Seated at his home computer one afternoon, surrounded by
neat stacks of papers and professional journals, he reviews his
progress. He has finished writing a description of the class he is
monitoring, edited his first week of commentaries, and selected video
vignettes to illustrate them. He has also decided what
"transformative'' experiences to describe--his graduate work in both
middle school philosophy and integrating special-education students
into the "regular'' classroom--and which service project to highlight:
his work as a peer-observer. Seeing himself on videotape has been a
strange experience. "When I come home and watch the tapes at night, I
am horrified and worried and feeling disillusioned; I see all the
problems,'' he explains. "But when I watch them two or three weeks
later, it's not nearly as bad as I thought.''

Rick's next task is to select the three students whose work he will
discuss. He stacks students' papers into groups--high, middle, and low
achievers--hoping to pick one student from each to analyze. Although
his hours are filled with gathering materials and making decisions
about how to use them, Rick has already learned a few lessons about his
teaching. He has discovered that the way he organizes
reading-discussion groups doesn't work. And he has decided to scrap his
current vocabulary book, which teaches words out of context, and
instead use words from students' other subjects. On a less specific
level, he worries that he doesn't give students enough feedback. "I
don't give them or myself the opportunity to think reflectively and let
them know where they stand,'' he laments.

But he has also noticed strengths that he believes will work in his
favor as he seeks certification as a generalist. Because of his
elementary background, for example, he does a good job of integrating
other subjects into his English class. His students write about
mathematics, science, and history each quarter. And when his 7th
graders caught "Jurassic Park'' fever, Rick taught a lesson on DNA.

He is making good progress on his portfolio, but the Jan. 14 mailing
deadline weighs heavily on his mind. He knows that the last weekend
before the deadline is booked up; his church needs a new pastor, and he
has agreed to spend those days helping in the search. "Some days,'' he
sighs, "I feel so burdened down by the load.''

The weekend before the Friday deadline, Diane can see the light at
the end of the tunnel. She's relieved to have finished documenting her
work with her sixth-period class. Now, she's trying to select one taped
class period to use as an illustration. She's leaning toward the lesson
that was interrupted by the fire drill because it shows her students
working well in groups on the Anne Frank project. Each group randomly
drew the name of a character from the play, found what the author said
about the character, wrote down the information and defined any new
words, drew a picture of the person, and recorded something the
character said that reflected his or her personality. The students
worked productively together as Diane circulated around the room
answering their questions.

Diane also has picked the three students whose writing she will
analyze: a boy in her gifted-and-talented class, a girl from the
Dominican Republic who speaks English in dialect, and a boy from a
regular English class. The three students have all shown improvement.
The gifted student learned to revise his written work. The Dominican
girl developed greater fluency in her writing, learning to elaborate
and to use correct verb tenses. And the remaining student began the
year with nearly illegible handwriting, which has substantially
improved.

Looking closely at many students' work, Diane explains, has made her
feel "more secure'' about her teaching methods. Her favorite exercise
was a discussion she had with a group of students after reading Flowers
for Algernon, a science-fiction story by Daniel Keyes. The fifth-period
class is one of her most challenging: a group of lively, talkative
adolescents with a wide range of academic abilities. Some have physical
disabilities, and one girl can't sit next to boys because of her
religion. With this group, Diane says, she was able to elicit a genuine
literary discussion of free-flowing ideas and responses. "Through this
discussion,'' she writes in her portfolio, "the students were making
connections between the character and their own experiences ... and
were able to recognize the universality of the theme and the pertinence
of it toward their lives.''

On Jan. 11, four days before the portfolios must be mailed, Diane,
Rick, and three other Fairfax County teachers participating in the
field-test get together. The atmosphere is festive--they are almost
giddy--because the end is so near. Four of the five have worked in
pairs, an advantage they say has kept them going. "If I didn't have
Diane, it would be very difficult for me,'' Rick acknowledges. "Both of
us have the same mentality, and she could interpret things for
me.''

But there's also an underlying note of tension, especially as Rick
and other generalist candidates compare their work. Because their
directions were less specific than those for the English-language-arts
teachers, there is more room for interpretation--and possibly error--in
their portfolios. Rick's teaching-and-learning commentary is 66 pages
long. One of the other teachers has written six pages; another, only
one page. Rick is astonished. "I'm a little troubled that we could have
such different interpretations of it, and yet it could still be
acceptable,'' he says. "That's really subjective.''

Rick has other things to worry about as well. Buyers have just
signed a contract to purchase his house, so he has to rush home to
conduct final negotiations. And tomorrow, his son has to have
ventilation tubes surgically placed in his ears to relieve his ear
infections. There's always Friday to look forward to, though. The
Wormelis have lined up a baby sitter and are dreaming about a quiet
post-deadline dinner together.

At this point, Diane is disappointed with her product. She doesn't
have a letter-quality printer and worries that her work doesn't look
polished enough. And the directions for putting together the materials
are intimidating. "I thought I would be proud of it,'' she says, "but
I'm not. I feel like it's not good enough.'' And then, she adds, "I
don't know if I'd want to do this again.'' Both she and Rick believe
that future candidates should have an entire school year to put their
portfolios together.

Before breaking up the session, the Fairfax teachers share
information about which local post offices stay open until midnight.
The knowledge that they have until midnight on Friday to mail their
portfolios seems to buoy everyone. They are all eager to send off the
fruits of their labors.

When Friday night finally arrives, Diane beats Rick to the post
office--arriving at 11 P.M. The previous two nights, she turned in at 3
A.M. and 2 A.M., and she's exhausted. Her last few hours were spent
labeling the materials and putting them together in the right order.
She found herself constantly snacking on junk food. Driving through the
cold, windy night on her way to the post office, she kept thinking, "I
can't believe I'm doing this. I can't believe I'm doing this.''

Rick finally arrives at 11:30. His dreams of a night out with his
wife are shot. The previous two days have passed in a blur of
real-estate agents, doctors, and substitute teachers. (Fairfax County
arranged for each candidate to have subs for two days.) He's running on
empty after a nearly sleepless week. Today, he spent hours making
copies of materials on his father's copier--"having anxiety attacks
every hour.'' He and his wife combed carefully through his 66-page
teaching account, making sure that each reference to students' work was
accurate. At the last minute, he realized that he'd forgotten to copy
an important document describing his work as a peer-observer and had to
rush back to his parents' house. Finally, at a quarter to 11, he left
for the 25-minute drive to the post office. "The whole way there,'' he
says, "I kept saying, 'Don't go fast and get in an accident. It's not
worth it.'''

As Rick enters the post office, he sees two of the other Fairfax
teachers, and they all burst out laughing. One of the teachers, worried
that the portfolio might get lost, is trying unsuccessfully to persuade
the postmaster to insure it for $600. Rick has a postal clerk securely
tape his package shut, pays $7.45 for postage, and walks out--numb.

On the way home, he celebrates quietly with a vanilla milkshake from
McDonald's.

The Northern Virginia weather, typically mild in winter, takes pity
on the tired teachers and delivers heaps of snow, forcing schools to
close for several days the week following the deadline. Diane makes
home-cooked meals for her kids and curls up with them to watch videos.
Rick can't rest; he and his wife have just bought a new house, and
there are details to wrap up. He spends the rest of his time grading
student papers that have piled up.

After a few days' reflection, Diane is feeling cheerier about her
portfolio. She enjoyed meeting new people from George Washington
University and her school district, and she learned some things about
her students from looking closely at their work and gathering
information on their backgrounds. "There is always more to know,'' she
says.

For Rick, examining his own professional development was a
worthwhile activity that helped him clarify who he is as a teacher.
Exploring ways to integrate other subjects into his lessons was
particularly exciting. "I can't turn it off,'' he says. And writing
about his teaching, rather than just thinking about it on the way to
work, proved a powerful experience. "Writing it out solidifies your own
ideas,'' he says, "and gives you the vocabulary and the structure by
which to analyze something.''

But the time constraints, he notes, were too severe. In fact, he
would not go through the process again unless he were given more time.
Diane admits that she considered giving up but feared disappointing the
university professors who were so interested in her work.

The return to normalcy is short-lived for the two teachers. By
mid-February, they are already gearing up for the assessment-center
activities, which will take place at George Washington University over
two full weekend days in early March. After receiving information from
the national board, they have homework to do.

Rick has received a copy of SimCity, an interactive
computer-software program that simulates community development. Users
can build cities from scratch or resurrect San Francisco after the 1906
earthquake. Rick's task is to figure out how it could best be used by
his students. The problem for Rick isn't a shortage of ideas--it's
knowing that, to actually use SimCity, his students would need far more
access to computers than they currently have. "It's hard to be
motivated,'' he says, "when you know it's just a wisp of smoke.''

Diane, meanwhile, needs to read eight novels for young
adolescents--among them The Red Pony, by John Steinbeck, and The
Pigman, by Paul Zindel--which she will be asked about at the assessment
center. Although she is already familiar with some of the books, she
plans to read each one. She simply wants to be able to do her best. At
this point, Diane says she's not thinking much about whether she will
actually be certified, but she concedes that she may not handle it very
well if she doesn't make it.

She knows that certification will not bring any immediate
rewards--other than the sense of accomplishment from a job well done.
In fact, board certification doesn't really have much meaning yet.
Fairfax County hasn't developed any rewards for board-certified
teachers, although those who are participating in the field-test will
get credit toward the requirements they must fulfill to renew their
teaching licenses. "It will be a long time before this has real
importance,'' Diane acknowledges, "and that's O.K.''

In his characteristic zealous style, Rick decides to study the
textbooks for every core subject in the 5th through 8th grades to brush
up on his subject knowledge. He also reviews the videotape he made for
his portfolio because he has been told that he will have to answer
questions about it at the assessment center.

Although he is concerned about whether he will have enough time to
complete the exercises, Rick is excited at the prospect of meeting
other certification candidates and trading "war stories.'' He has
decided to spend $138 of his own money to stay at a hotel near the
university so he can have peace and quiet before the big days.

Like Diane, Rick knows the rewards for national certification are
down the road. But he can think of things he'd like if he does get
certified, and they are embarrassingly modest for a teacher of his
caliber. He'd like, for example, to be paid to be an assessor for other
candidates next year. And he'd also like for his school system to foot
the bill for him to attend professional conferences.

On Saturday, March 5, Diane rides to the assessment center with
another Fairfax County candidate. They arrive at 7 A.M. and are asked
to show identification. This tickles them. "We said, 'Yeah, like you
could pay someone to take this test for you,''' Diane says,
laughing.

After taking two two-hour written examinations, Diane finds a
discussion with an assessor a refreshing change of pace. She answers
questions about samples of students' writing, pointing out their
strengths and weaknesses and how she would help the students improve.
The discussion is videotaped for later evaluation. Over all, Diane
feels comfortable about the assessments but a little rushed at times.
Still, by the end of the day, she is dazed. "After a lot of
concentration, I get to the point where I am staring at people,'' she
says. Saturday night, she unwinds over dinner with a friend.

Sunday's assessments begin with a written analysis of a videotaped
lesson taught by another teacher. "I was impressed with the fact that
it really was an actual class videotape,'' Diane says. "I don't know
what I expected, but it was nice because it was the real thing and not
a setup.'' After her final written examination, she participates in a
group discussion of the novels she read. The discussion, she says,
feels lifelike--actually, better than real life; the 45 minutes
allotted for the exercise is more time than the teachers at Diane's
school generally have to plan together.

When she walks out of the center at the end of the second day, Diane
feels like the pioneer the national board says she is. "I really did
finally feel a sense of achievement,'' she says.

Rick's weekend gets off to a rocky start. The day before the
assessment activities begin, he receives a letter from the national
board telling him that, due to lack of time, he won't be evaluated on
the videotaped lesson that was in his portfolio. He's disappointed and
a little angry to receive such late notice; his preparation for that
part of the assessment has been a waste of time.

After checking into the hotel late Friday night, Rick spends a few
hours reading civics and physics textbooks. He wakes up the next
morning feeling nervous. The day begins with a curriculum exercise that
has Rick and other candidates discussing how they would create a
thematic unit. Then, he is asked to write an essay describing how he
would develop the theme drawing on one of three topics--systems of
government, ecosystems, and the influences of the media--that he was
told in advance to brush up on. Next, he takes the first of three
one-hour subject-matter examinations. The day ends with a 3-1/2-hour
analysis of a mathematics teacher. During the first hour, he watches a
videotape of the teacher at work in the classroom and reads a narrative
in which the teacher describes her instruction. Rick spends the rest of
the time writing a response to her teaching, suggesting strategies that
might be more effective and recommending ways to incorporate the arts
into the lesson. The videotape and teacher's narrative are very much
like the ones Rick submitted in his own portfolio.

When he finishes, Rick is so foggy-headed that he gets lost trying
to find his hotel. Then, he's thwarted in his attempt to buy dinner;
the cheapest entree on the hotel restaurant menu costs $18.95, and he
only has $15 in his wallet. Finally, he orders pizza, talks to his wife
on the phone for an hour, and crashes at 9 P.M.

The next day is just as long, starting with an assessment of the
candidates' writing proficiency. The one-hour time limit frustrates
Rick. "We never, ever, ever teach kids to do things in one hour,'' he
explains. "For a good writing piece, you would give kids at least a
week.'' He finds it odd, at best, that the cutting-edge assessment
would be "such a contrast to the standards'' that underlie the
assessments.

The SimCity exercise, which Rick calls "the bane of his existence,''
comes next, followed by the other two content examinations. As he
finishes, Rick feels the way he does after climbing a mountain. "I have
an exhausted ache all over,'' he says, "but I'm tingly with what I have
done.'' It's a good feeling, but it doesn't compare, he says, with how
it felt to finish his master's degree. "It's not like I have rocketed
ahead.''

Looking back on the whole experience, Diane feels that the
assessments tied in naturally with her portfolio. But for Rick, the two
steps were totally different. And he preferred the portfolio over the
assessment.

The national board will pay close attention to such comments from
teachers who participated in the field-test. The goal of the trial run,
after all, was to learn as much as possible about both the assessments
themselves and the operation of the certification system. In general,
says Valarie French, the board's vice president for assessment
operations, the field-test ran smoothly at 26 sites across the
nation.

But there were some glitches, among them the last-minute decision
not to conduct interviews with generalist candidates on their own
videotapes. Including that exercise would have meant a 12-hour day at
the assessment centers, French says, so the interviews will be done
later. Board officials also have heard complaints about the strict
rules enforced by the proctors monitoring the assessments. This was
necessary, French says, to insure test security and standardization
across the sites. But, she adds, the policy likely will be revised.

Rick's complaint that the timed writing assessments seemed to
violate good teaching practice was also mentioned by other teachers.
But French notes that the assessment center wasn't intended to be an
instructional situation. The point of the written assessments was to
see what teachers could do under time constraints, responding to a
question they hadn't seen before. In the portfolios, she points out,
teachers had plenty of opportunities to prepare drafts and rewrite
their work.

"We have to do a better job of describing our expectations for the
assessment center,'' she says, "so that at least the candidates will be
better informed and acknowledge that we understand that if we were
asking, 'How would you get the best performance out of students?' this
isn't what you would do.''

In the future, candidates likely will have more time to complete
their portfolios--at least six months, French guesses. That would give
them much more latitude in deciding which lessons to focus on. Until
practicing teachers assembled the portfolios, the national board could
only guess how long completing the exercises would take. Teachers
reported spending about 100 hours on the portfolios, twice what the
board had estimated.

In the end, 545 teachers--out of 1,500 who received
materials--completed the portfolio, far fewer than the board had hoped.
"We're certainly very proud of the people who stuck with this and
completed it on time,'' French says.

The national board and its senior officials sent a couple of
congratulatory letters to the teachers who took part in the field-test,
thanking them for their hard work. Although she knows that the letters
were well intended, Diane says she felt a little "degraded'' by a
suggestion in one that undergoing the national board's assessments
should have changed her teaching. "It's like they think you need to
change,'' she says, "or that their purpose is to change teachers.'' The
process, she notes, taught her some things that she plans to
incorporate into her teaching. But, she adds, it wasn't a "major,
earth-shattering event'' in her professional life.

Now that it's all over, though, both Diane and Rick want very much
to make the grade. They won't find out until next fall. "I will doubt
myself if I don't pass,'' Rick confides. "This tested true abilities in
teaching.''

Vol. 13, Issue 30

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